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December has arrived, which means different things for different people. While many of us are gearing up to slow down and spend quality time with family and friends, retail companies are bracing themselves for the clamor and chaos of the holiday season. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Boxing Day, this season signals a momentous time when consumers across the globe are ready and willing to spend, spend, spend.

Since most companies can anticipate a significant peak in sales during the final few months of the year, they can also anticipate a spike in customers, and in turn, a big increase in service requests. Here are a few things every retail company can do to maintain a high level of customer service and ensure that the momentum gained is maintained this festive season both in-store and online.

Onholdwith.com, the Fonolo-powered site that mines Twitter for real-time complaints about being put on hold (and folks, there are many, many complaints), has today made its annual list of hold-time offenders available for all the world to see. And you may be surprised by who made the list.

OnHoldWith.com, launched by Fonolo a few years back, this year collected over a whopping 165,000 posts mentioning the phrase “on hold with” from Twitter. And as those of us in customer service know to a sobering degree, Twitter has quickly become a go-to platform customers use to shout about frustrating customer service experiences. The tweets informing the report this year confirm that: a) customers are increasingly turning to social media to publicly out companies for poor customer service handling; and b) a benchmark of this poor service is placing a customer on hold.

While the companies on this year’s top 10 list are doing exquisite things in their industries (and trust us, we are big fans of all of them), the results of this year’s report signal that brands could be doing things even better, starting with sprucing up their customer service offerings.

Over a decade ago, in 2007-era Toronto, Shai Berger, Jason Bigue, and Mike Pultz launched a little rocket of a company called Fonolo, unsure of where and how far it would take them. Many memorable years later, and with more employees climbing aboard along the way, Fonolo has grown to be known as the pioneer in cloud-based call-back solutions, to the delight of those in the call center industry.

Today we are chuffed to announce yet another milestone moment in the company’s growth and commitment to its customers: The release of our advanced new call-back platform. The new platform offers a breadth of new features supporting increased security, reporting, customization, and accessibility, intended to provide customers with the tools they need to handle the growing call-volume and complexity in their contact centers.

It’s been a big year for Avaya, probably the most important 12-month period in the company’s long, storied existence. In January, Avaya emerged from bankruptcy with a newly listed stock (NYSE: AVYA); a balance sheet much lower in debt; a new management team; and a renewed focus.

Thus, today’s earnings report was a milestone for the company and it was generally positive. Those of us cheering for a strong and competitive Avaya have a lot to be happy about.

No, it’s the top contact center trends to watch for in 2019. And we’ve got you covered.

So many storylines, so little time. And as in any classic comic book, the storylines are familiar and sometimes predictable, but we foresee them taking captivating turns in the new year.

As the sun sets on 2018, contact center superheroes should watch for the plots, characters, and villains within them. As always, we keep watch of trends and issues pertinent to contact centers, continuously shifting due to technological advancements; mergers and acquisitions in the SaaS space; the realigning of customer service and experience priorities on the part of brands; and more.

Good customer service is crucial to the success of any business. It also happens to be one of the hardest things to ‘get right’, even for the most seasoned of brands. Imagine spending eight hours a day fixing problems you didn’t cause in the first place. Now imagine that your hands are tied in a million different ways and you’re unable to resolve the bulk of the customer complaints that are on the rise. This scenario is real, widespread, and is likely the reason for high attrition rates in the customer service industry.

This is why empowering a customer service team can be key to the overall success of any company. While we could go on for days about the benefits that come from giving your call center employees autonomy, here are the top three reasons you should actively work to support your customer service employees.

A number of call center companies reported earnings in the last few weeks, so it’s time once again for an informal, semi-regular, not-at-all-intended-as-investment-advice look at what’s going on. Twilio and RingCentral both had a bumper crop of news and their stock prices have reflected that; this continues the momentum from the last time we talked about them.

We’re going to cover Cisco and Vonage for the first time, because there’s a lot of call-center-related news there. We’re not covering Avaya today because they don’t report for another two weeks, but we’ll do a stand-alone post on them. (Lots going on there.) Continue reading →

There is no question that customer service is changing quickly. From website FAQs, to live chat options, to social media platforms, there are an increasing amount of channels which consumers can use to reach out for help.

Still, even with all of these bells and whistles, nothing beats the emperor of all customer service options: Speaking to an actual human being.

And the research doesn’t lie: While customers certainly appreciate and use the options available to them, 79% would still prefer to talk to a call center representative over the phone than opt for self-serve online. And, call centers tend to be one of the most-used customer service channels, second only to FAQs. So, given that human-powered customer service is thriving, we call center folks need to ask: What are the key things that should happen on every call to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction?

Analytics are a key part of any company’s road to success. It’s important for all departments to have benchmarks for success that can be easily measured and tracked. These are often referred to as KPIs (or, key performance indicators). KPIs are measures that indicate how well a company or specific department is tracking towards a clearly-defined goal.

Call center and customer service teams have a variety of KPIs to choose from, but as each company and support department is different, their benchmarks will vary. Read on to learn about a few measures that are commonly tracked in call centers and customer service departments. They may just work for you, too.

It could be argued that customer service is uniformly about a few core things: Giving consumers agency; shepherding them towards a positive outcome to their problems; and providing solutions and smiles by whatever means (and using whatever technology) necessary. While this may seem simple enough, call and contact center managers of the 21st Century know better: It ain’t easy.

As we wind down the year, one exploding with news of mergers, acquisitions, emerging technologies, dying technologies, and the like, sometimes it’s good to go back to basics when the volume on industry news and trends has been turned up to dizzying, deafening degrees.

And, you know, we’re here to help. Our thanksgiving gift to you? Feast your eyes on the infographic below (along with the accompanying Coles notes) which acts as a handy cheat-sheet for those looking to revitalize their contact and call centers with simple changes (including gamification, service levels, and call-backs), all of which will continue to shape the landscape in 2019.